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Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Majorette is surely Euro-centric, but not as much as you think...

I have never had any concrete impressions of Majorette. I just haven't had enough in the collection. Over the last few years, if you mentioned Majorette, in my head would pop up some generalizations:

Hard to find.

Opening parts.

Focused on current cars.

Euro-centric casting choices.

So, am I correct in those assumptions? Sure. For those of us in the US, Majorette is terribly hard-to-find. Majorette's dedication to opening parts in their Premium Series is a highlight to say the least. You don't see many classic car releases, if any. I hope they get easier to find, I hope they stay dedicated to opening parts, and I actually love that they are dedicated to current cars. It means we get a lot of new-car variety each year.

Euro-centric? First impression, yes. It starts with common European brands like Porsche, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Aston Martin, etc, and Majorette goes even deeper with Peugeot, Renault, and Citroen. But look again. Nissan, Honda, Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, and on and on. Majorette is committed to current cars, but all kinds of them.

So I will say my first three generalizations are accurate - impression #1, just for now, as they are working on being available all over the world. The fourth impression, not so much.

Case-in-point, three new sports car releases in the Premium Series. An Italian (Alfa Romeo 4C), a Brit (McLaren 675LT), and yes, an American (Dodge Viper). All sporty, all cool for different reasons, and all replicated beautifully by Majorette.

I don't know if I need to get into all the details of each model. The Alfa and McLaren have been found in some parts of the world, the Viper is coming soon. The same impressions apply to these as to the Bentley we previewed a few days ago. The castings and details are top notch, while the wheels on the Viper and McLaren to leave a little to be desired. Contrastingly, the wheels on the Alfa are superb. Majorette has some very nice wheels, but they aren't used on everything. The wheels on the Viper could happily be retired and replaced.

And while two of the three don't have opening parts, they all have another Majorette signature - plastic headlights. I love that feature, and Majorette has really gotten that skill down.

So is it apparent I have jumped on the Majorette bandwagon? I hope so. And from what I hear, a lot of you have as well. Hopefully these get easier and easier to find - hit up your Canadian friends if you need to - but a little effort to create a collection isn't a bad thing. You can count on me to keep featuring them. More to come...

And yes, of course I am going to put the Matchbox and Majorette 4C's together. A brilliant pair.

We here in the UK have two versions, the OLD stuff, on short cards, that are cheap and tacky, designed and built during their financial issues period, then we have the new stuff, but this is limited to one or two cases, over and over again, which includes teh MK 7 Golf, Audi A1, Citroen C4 Cactus.

But to get singles of the Clio, Bentley, McLaren, Alfa and so on, is nigh on impossible, thankfully we pop over to France twice a year, so i try and get what i am missing, but the HUGE T-R-Us and Hypermarche both had limited stocks, but they had thousands of Hot Wheels, between them, all damaged as they were in dump bins and ripped, crushed etc, this was the only place i did manage to find the one and only Super TH I purchased, i have since eBayed a few others, but you guys in canada seem to be having a better tranche of models than we do here in Europe.

Don't forget that Majorette also produce some excellent construction vehicles too. Last week my son bought a Majorette Mercedes Benz Actros dump truck from the local 7-Eleven store. Before he opened it I was sure the bed was going to be plastic but to my pleasant surprise both the cab and bed were metal. Can't imagine Matchbox ever having a licensed dump truck with a metal cab and bed again.